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Video: Yorkshire Phoenix Subbuteo team aim for glory
When England walk out onto the pitch in South Africa in June for the World Cup, back home the beautiful game will be being played out in miniature.
Yorkshire Phoenix, England's top-ranked Subbuteo team, are out to regain their title at the national championships.
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And thankfully the side is fit and well for the biggest tournament of the season – not a broken finger nail in sight.
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The table footballers, who train at Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, won in 2006, 2007 and 2008, finishing runners-up in 2009.
Club captain Paul Lawrenson, 34, who founded Yorkshire Phoenix on his kitchen table, said: "We have got a good chance this year. We'll be able to put out a good side."
Lawrenson is one of the team's highest-ranked players, proving his skill on Saturday when he won the Club league.
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Like many of the team's members he rekindled his passion for finger-flicking football almost a decade after he last played as a teenager.
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Contrary to public perception, Subbuteo is not played by frustrated football wannabes, he said.
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Paul, who plays as Yorkshire Phoenix in a Real Madrid-inspired strip, said: "People who don't know the game assume that we all want to play for a Premiership team.
"But you are playing with lumps of plastic. You are the player, competing as Paul Lawrenson, not Leeds or Liverpool.
"You are in control and you are the one that puts the ball in the back of the net."
Gary Pearson, who hopes to fly to Malta later this month to compete in an International Grand Prix, said: "In England, table football's not got as good a reputation as it has in Europe.
"The Italians take it so seriously that there is a Subbuteo team for every Premiership team, and it plays every time they do. You get Inter Milan and Roma battling it out on a one-metre-long pitch."
He added: "In England it's presented as a kids' game because that's how it was sold.
"But in actual fact there aren't many kids playing these days."
And there are many advantages to playing table football, said Richard Pepper, 55, who has been playing for 43 years.
It is accessible and costs about 20 to get a side together, and an entire tournament can be played out in one day.
Yorkshire Phoenix are ranked 56th in the world.
* For more information visit: www.freewebs.com/yorkshiresubbuteo
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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